Team members at Toyota South Africa Motors last week celebrated as the 1 millionth proudly South African manufactured Corolla rolled of the production line at the company’s Prospecton Plant in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.
The white Toyota Corolla that came off the production line on Wednesday 20 November 2013 crowns six years of successful production in which the Corolla was produced in both left and right hand drive variants and exported to regions including Eastern and Western Europe, the Caribbean and Africa.
“It is very symbolic that the Corolla reaches this milestone now,” says Dr Johan van Zyl, President and CEO of Toyota South Africa Motors. “It not only celebrates a very successful production run for the tenth generation world’s favourite car, but it heralds the introduction of the new Corolla in 2014.”
The Corolla was first introduced in South Africa in 1975 and soon became South Africa’s favourite family vehicle. It has been produced at Toyota’s Prospecton plant since introduction, while its local content was gradually increased and the range widened to include left and right hand drive models for various export markets.
While the 1 millionth Corolla will find pride of place next to the 1 millionth Hilux in Toyota’s museum at its Sales and Marketing Head Office in Sandton the Prospecton Plant is busy preparing the manufacturing facility for the start of production of the new Corolla, which was revealed at the recent Johannesburg International Motor Show in October.
“The Corolla benefitted from our R8 billion investment programme (first announced in 2008), which modernised the plant and introduced a state of the art paint plant. With the new Corolla we hope to start our next round of investment and look forward to sharing this plan when our first new generation Corolla models roll off the line,” says Dr Van Zyl.
